"Other"

They acted so shocked and surprised when we started beating, robbing, setting fire to, and killing old people.
We got them on their way home from their nights out in town. That's how we knew they had money.

I laughed so much as we kicked an old woman around like a sandbag. She kept saying how it wasn't right, and that she didn't understand why we were doing this to her.

They were "other". It was as simple as that. This is the only phenomenon required for a human to no longer recognise a human as human. You see them as other. They exist under a different definition of you.

These rich old people couldn't believe it. They didn't think they could ever be "other". Their eyes would dart past News stories of homeless people being pissed on, set ablaze, tortured and killed, and their eyes would roll past this News, unaffected. Because the homeless are "other". They are not human.

Society would shield the wealthy. They were the chosen citizens. But the have-nots grew too big. The haves became "other". They lived such different worlds to us. And it started with one brutal mugging, and then became normal place across the country. After all they weren't human. They were "other".